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I once had a human resources manager tell me that she was honestly worried to hire me.  Not because I was under qualified or the wrong personality, but because she thought I’d feel confined by the large, corporate environment. She said I seemed too talented for that.  It was an interesting compliment. On one hand, her words were like a shot of confidence to the arm. I felt assured…

Being generic is the quickest way to be treated unfairly. It’s the reason clients with bad taste show up with their arms folded, hope to drive down price, trying to make you dance, pushing for solutions you won’t even be proud of.  Because there’s no brand. There’s no narrative. You haven’t established a monopoly on a set of expectations. You haven’t created an interaction that’s bigger than the work…

Whyte writes in his inspiring book on personal transformation that taking a new step always leads to a kind of radical internal simplification, where, suddenly, very large parts of us, parts of us we have kept gainfully employed for years, parts of us still rehearsing the old complicated story, are suddenly out of the job.  That’s why we prefer to stay where we are. Changing is a form of death. It…

Rogers was one of the founding fathers of psychology research and the pioneer of client centered therapy. In his best known book, which he wrote over fifty years ago, he outlined his professional trajectory as a psychology.  Rogers said that he was best when he could let the flow of his experience carry him, in a direction which appeared to be forward, toward goals of which he was but…

Part of the appeal of busking is, the audience has no obligation to engage with the performer. They don’t have to listen to you. They can easily pretend you’re invisible and just keep on walking.  And so, it’s the busker’s job to earn their attention. To create a unique demonstration of love and generosity and vulnerability, delivering something worth noticing and worth crossing the street for and worth dropping…

Every year, I make a list of one hundred goals.  And over the next twelve months, at least twenty of those goals fall by the wayside. Either because my priorities shifted or my plans changed or my projects shifted.  It happens. Dreams come and go. And although there are tiny pangs of guilt, I try not to beat myself up too much. Because I trust that there will be more…

Everybody’s trying to do something else.  Nobody is satisfied with where they are or what they’re doing right now. There’s always another horizon on standby. Another aspiration waiting in the wings. And as a result, they get so busy scrambling toward the future that the present is reduced to a means of getting there.  In fact, go ask ten people what their long term goals are. Half of them…

Every artist creates sketches.  Small, imperfect, nonlinear piecemeal art that isn’t fully fleshed out. They’re brief accounts. Pocket notes. Opening shots. Micro expressions. Bits and pieces. Splashes of inspiration that capture individual feelings and moments and perspectives.  And they don’t necessarily have to be pictures, either. Sketches are medium agnostic.  Carlin, for example, would include sections in his comedy books called short takes. These were one liners, quips, questions, quotations and…

But I have no idea what I’m doing.  That’s the biggest barrier in launching any new project. Lack of competence. Absence of ability. Just imagine how many thousands of ideas and businesses and dreams went unrealized because of that statement.  The reality is, though, if you don’t know what you’re doing, that’s okay. As long as you focus on knowing who you are, you’ll be fine. That’s the priority….

Ideas are free, execution is priceless. That’s been my mantra since day one of starting my business. It’s also the title of a book I wrote a few years back. You can download it for free here. But here’s the problem. I’m an idea junkie. Everything I look at in the world breaks down into a collection of ideas. I have about fifty new ones every day, and sadly, I…